Author Topic: My old 'TPIR' home game (Read 6532 times)

The Pyramids · « **on:** December 25, 2004, 03:15:24 PM »

Years ago as a little kid I would watch Bob Barker promote the "Price Is Right" Milton-Bradley home game on TV and would want it. Even though I was too young for it my mother being the nice person she is saw to it that Santa put it under the tree approximatley 28 years ago today.

Years later the thing had become lost. It was possibly sold at a garage sale in '91 when I was completely away from game shows. In fact my mom may very well have given me a heads-up that the game was among the things of mine that was marked for sale and I
must not have cared.

But I cared later on when I learned that the missing game was the 1976 third edition that is valued by fans. But the fact of the matter is that I looked thorugh the closets at my parents house and the game was not there.

But it is not all that bad. To the best of my knowledge the blue-box third edition has tunred up on Ebay once this year, and I was able to get it. It is likely in better shape than my lost one would have been.

cmjb13 · « **Reply #1 on:** December 25, 2004, 03:53:09 PM »

Which makes me wonder why he doesn't promote the home game anymore?

zachhoran · « **Reply #2 on:** December 25, 2004, 04:09:08 PM »

[quote name=\'cmjb13\' date=\'Dec 25 2004, 03:53 PM\']Which makes me wonder why he doesn't promote the home game anymore?

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They don't pimp the recently-released Endless Games adaptation of TPIR, but they'll pimp a CSI board game(it got a few plugs during IUFBs this month)? Geez. Although TPIR is one of the games included in the collection of Endless Games that appears in showcases and in some pricing games.

alfonzos · « **Reply #3 on:** December 26, 2004, 03:14:19 PM »

I, too, regret having lost the third edition of TPIR but my story is different.

I saw the game in the toy store of a suburban Cleveland, Ohio mall. The box wasn't shrnkwrapped so I peeked inside. I was disappointed there was a misprint on the Showcase Showdown spinner (two spaces were marked as with 5 and no 75 space) so I put it back on the shelf figuring I would buy it a thrift store later.

Later turned out to be much later. Over a quarter-century later when I found an incomplete game at a suburban Los Angeles thrift store.

Don Howard · « **Reply #4 on:** December 26, 2004, 03:39:35 PM »

[quote name=\'cmjb13\' date=\'Dec 25 2004, 03:53 PM\']Which makes me wonder why he doesn't promote the home game anymore?

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Seeing how it was developed by a former contestant, that to me would seem like an even bigger incentive to promote it.

aaron sica · « **Reply #5 on:** December 26, 2004, 03:40:11 PM »

Although I was too young for that TPiR home game, I do remember the first game show board game I ever had - the 4th Edition of "Family Feud". It was an Easter gift in 1981..

zachhoran · « **Reply #6 on:** December 26, 2004, 06:40:13 PM »

[quote name=\'alfonzos\' date=\'Dec 26 2004, 03:14 PM\']
I saw the game in the toy store of a suburban Cleveland, Ohio mall. The box wasn't shrnkwrapped so I peeked inside. I was disappointed there was a misprint on the Showcase Showdown spinner (two spaces were marked as with 5 and no 75 space) so I put it back on the shelf figuring I would buy it a thrift store later.

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On a somewhat related topic, I found the 1974 Ideal versions of Squares and LMAD at a drug store near me(not a chain store) about a decade later. It sat on the shelf for a few years. The LMAD game wasn't shrink wrapped. A variety store near me(not a chain store) had a Davidson era Squares game sit on its shelf for quite a few years. I let the games sit there. I seem to remember a 1982 14th edition MB Jeopardy! game being on the shelf a year or two after the Trebek version premiered at one store, and it too wasn't shrinkwrapped.

MikeK · « **Reply #7 on:** December 26, 2004, 07:00:09 PM »

[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Dec 26 2004, 06:40 PM\']On a somewhat related topic, I found the 1974 Ideal versions of Squares and LMAD at a drug store near me(not a chain store) about a decade later. It sat on the shelf for a few years. The LMAD game wasn't shrink wrapped. A variety store near me(not a chain store) had a Davidson era Squares game sit on its shelf for quite a few years. I let the games sit there. I seem to remember a 1982 14th edition MB Jeopardy! game being on the shelf a year or two after the Trebek version premiered at one store, and it too wasn't shrinkwrapped.[/quote]
This topic has gone a different direction, albeit a very interesting direction. Here's my addition to the thread...

A local drug store chain had multiple sealed copies of High Rollers (Martindale era) for sale around 1998. Even though they were sealed, every copy but one was badly dented. I bought two games, one which I sold on eBay for a profit and keeping the better copy for my collection.

The Pyramids · « **Reply #8 on:** December 26, 2004, 07:10:26 PM »

Did anyones mom & pop stores ever get into the video rental business? I know one that did. Before it closed in 2000 a large, faded movie poster for 'Big' (with Tom Hanks) was still in the widow! So I am not surprised such stores had old games lying around.

I can also add that games for 'Family Feud' (Christmas of '83) and 'Wheel of Forrune' (Christmas 1985) were found at home and are now in my possesion.

The Ol' Guy · « **Reply #9 on:** December 26, 2004, 07:30:13 PM »

As long as we're bringing back memories, in the 60s and 70s, I had fun running into games in drug stores, hobby stores, hardware stores, and in one event, a lawn and garden store - most all were local independents. Some had old stock in the back rooms. Lowell must have had quite the sales crew, as most of my old Lowell acquisitions came from them - including The Price Is Right, Strike It Rich, What's My Line, Window Shopping and Candid Camera. One corner drug store had an old Dollar A Second lying around before I knew what it was..and I still kick myself over not grabbing an old Winky Dink kit for probably pennies in some pharmacy's back room because "it wasn't a game show". Ahh..the joys of being young and unaware...
Since some are adding the story of their first tv game show game, mine would be Lowell's Beat The Clock, a Christmas gift from my grandmother at around age 5.

Don Howard · « **Reply #10 on:** December 26, 2004, 08:34:48 PM »

Game show home games were a big reason I looked forward to the annual Sears wish book catalog. Always a fine selection in there. Is the wish book still published? And, if so, is it a shadow of its former self?

ChuckNet · « **Reply #11 on:** December 26, 2004, 10:05:50 PM »

I found my copy of Blockbusters at a local Child World around 1985 or so, and it also wasn't sealed...gave myself a nasty paper cut on my finger handling the play money inside during the first playing, as I recall.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

zachhoran · « **Reply #12 on:** December 26, 2004, 11:10:47 PM »

Weren't there Electronic Boutique bargain bins that turned up some of the Sharedata/Gametek/Hi Tech/Box Office game show computer games of the late 80s around 1999 or 2000?

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #13 on:** December 26, 2004, 11:21:18 PM »

Since this thread seems to have evolved into memories of home games, I might as well share why I started the GSHGHP, or at least started collecting the games as an adult.

I had 'em all growing up, or at least all the ones from the mid 60's through the mid 70's. There's an 8mm home movie of me opening a Christmas present of a Concentration game when I was three and a half years old. (Family legend says that I was making matches back then, even if I didn't understand what the rebuses were all about.)

When I went to college, the games stayed behind, all piled into a wooden storage shed behind our house. One day my father was burning leaves a little too carelessly, and the whole shed went up, all my childhood toys and games with it. Honestly, while I still loved game shows, I hadn't really thought about the old games as being collectables, so I didn't miss them that much. Still, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be an interesting challenge (this before Ebay) to see how many I could find to replace what had been lost.

In researching and hunting to replace what I had, I began discovering how much more there was out there. A couple of huge breaks in my research were finding an article about game show home games in a fanzine called Spin Again, and meeting Bob Zager (a member here), another avid collector from Michigan.

I developed what I thought was a definitive checklist, though new finds kept popping up and I'm still not entirely positive I've found them all. It was a personal project until the internet came along, and now it's one of the oldest game show web sites out there.

(I said ONE of the oldest, Mr. Lambert. BTW, congrats on reaching a decade with the OGSP.)

And now you know the rest of the story.

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #14 on:** December 27, 2004, 12:32:17 PM »

One of the first games I got was the "Joker's Wild" game for Christmas 1972. The next year I couldn't wait for "Beat the Clock". Then it was "Concentration", and later "$20,000 Pyramid". My biggest regret is seeing all of those games in the stores and not buying many of them at the time. Part of the problem is that nobody else in my family was really interested in game shows and I just sort of played with them by myself, so it lessened the incentive to buy more. Now, I wish I had! To date I've only bought one game on e-bay, the 1977 "Break the Bank" game, which I didn't even know existed until I first saw Matt Ottinger's page. I'd love to get some additional games too, but the high costs of shipping sometimes make them on the pricey side.